Lewis Hamilton led the way in the second practice session at Sepang, heading the times once again in a second dry session at the Malaysian track.
Second fastest was Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull but it was his team mate’s turn to suffer from the RB6’s poor reliability.
Once again the session saw several drivers struggling to keep their cars on the track. Both Toro Rosso drivers had moment off the track, with Jaime Alguersuari sliding wide with oversteer in between turns seven and eight.
Kamui Kobayashi and Timo Gock also had sideways moments as they got to grips with the Sepang circuit.
As in the first session the McLaren drivers headed to the top of the times after some quick runs early in the session. Hamilton set the fastest time of 1’34.175 using the soft tyres.
Red Bull’s reliability problems continued – Mark Webber pulled up early in the session and came to a halt in the turn nine gravel trap. Sebastian Vettel complained of power steering problems but was still able to set the second fastest time, 0.27s off Hamilton’s pace.
It appeared that some teams – notably Ferrari – were concentrating on high-fuel runs. Fernando Alonso ended the session seventh, Felipe Massa a lowly 15th.
Having missed the first session Vitantonio Liuzzi and Heikki Kovalainen were back in their cars. Lotus were the quickest of the new teams with Jarno Trulli one second off the next slowest car, Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams.
Pos. | Car number | Driver | Car | Best lap | Laps | |
1 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’34.175 | 27 | |
2 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’34.441 | 0.266 | 28 |
3 | 4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’34.443 | 0.268 | 30 |
4 | 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’34.538 | 0.363 | 24 |
5 | 3 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’34.674 | 0.499 | 30 |
6 | 11 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 1’35.148 | 0.973 | 34 |
7 | 8 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’35.581 | 1.406 | 34 |
8 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’35.660 | 1.485 | 39 |
9 | 12 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1’35.872 | 1.697 | 20 |
10 | 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1’35.957 | 1.782 | 32 |
11 | 23 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’36.018 | 1.843 | 38 |
12 | 15 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 1’36.221 | 2.046 | 34 |
13 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’36.325 | 2.15 | 33 |
14 | 17 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’36.325 | 2.15 | 39 |
15 | 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’36.602 | 2.427 | 30 |
16 | 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1’36.813 | 2.638 | 26 |
17 | 10 | Nico Hulkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 1’37.415 | 3.24 | 19 |
18 | 18 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 1’38.454 | 4.279 | 34 |
19 | 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 1’38.530 | 4.355 | 32 |
20 | 6 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’38.786 | 4.611 | 13 |
21 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’39.061 | 4.886 | 23 |
22 | 25 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’39.158 | 4.983 | 29 |
23 | 20 | Karun Chandhok | HRT-Cosworth | 1’41.084 | 6.909 | 27 |
24 | 21 | Bruno Senna | HRT-Cosworth | 1’41.481 | 7.306 | 32 |
2010 Malaysian Grand Prix
Image (C) Red Bull/Getty images
Jay Menon
2nd April 2010, 8:54
Like I’ve just said on the Blog tab…tyre wear will determine who wins tomorrow if the weather stays dry.
Alonso and Massa dont seem to be pushin too hard, they must be doing race simulations.
Great lap by Chandhok at the very end, almost 3 seconds quicker than his previous best, edged Senna by almost half a second.
Patrickl
2nd April 2010, 12:34
If you look at the laptime sheet, it looks like both Massa and Alonso attempted a fast lap, but simply didn’t get it done.
The long run pace for the top drivers was more like a 1:39 to 1:40.
Hamilton and Button did 3 short stints though. Guess they really want to improve their qualifying performance.
MacLeod
2nd April 2010, 8:55
Looks like McLaren opts for some positive feed by running on low fuel. Strange Ferrari is in the middle and what Weber is doing no idea.
Kie
2nd April 2010, 9:12
RE: Weber – I think his car broke?
MacLeod
2nd April 2010, 9:19
Sorry i didn’t know when i saw the times ) I thought maybe the rain during pratice but did it rain at all?
bob
2nd April 2010, 9:20
no rain at all in Free practises
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
2nd April 2010, 17:40
No but it did rain in between the two practice sessions and then a big rain storm started a few minutes after FP2 ended.
This is significant because today’s practice sessions are earlier in the day than qualifying and the race are tomorrow and on Sunday. If the rain arrives on Saturday and Sunday the same time it has on the last few days it will fall on qualifying on the race… and it won’t be light.
silencer
2nd April 2010, 9:09
is williams testing their version of F-duct system in sepang?
if it true that’s mean they are the third team to use f-duct system after mclaren and sauber
Stefan
2nd April 2010, 9:14
Jay Menon
Ferrari is twittering:
session finished with alonso 7th and massa 15th. There is a lot of work to do to prepare the race: we can foresee a very difficult weekend
@ MacLeod
Webber parked his car into the gravel and his Practice 2 was over after 13 laps.
bob
2nd April 2010, 9:18
Williams are looking bad
Petrov- next free practisde champion? Like Rosberg back in 2009
James_mc
2nd April 2010, 12:17
I think “Cosworth” looking bad would be more accurate…..
F1 Novice
2nd April 2010, 9:37
Maccas seem on the pace – Fridays difficult to make assumptions ‘tho .
Sirko
2nd April 2010, 9:47
It was very interesting “fight” between Rosberg and Schumacher, but Nico won again. Your team mate is always your primary rival, I think, this is the biggest psychologic war on the grid, though it seems like everything is under control in Mercedes.
haha
2nd April 2010, 10:10
I saw something resembling the f-duct on Renault.
PeterG
2nd April 2010, 10:19
Why not a few words about Petrov?
bob
2nd April 2010, 10:23
And why should there be?
steph
2nd April 2010, 12:01
There was a nice moment in Fp1 near the beginning when Petrov went quickest and his manager etc were clapping. That made me smile
Osvaldas
2nd April 2010, 10:23
Chandhok beat Senna again. Senna became vice-cahamp in gp2 in his first year, meanwhile Chandhok was at the end of the grid for 4 years. Looks like gp2 is not the best indicator of drivers’ real skills.
bob
2nd April 2010, 11:06
Yeah same to Groesjean and Kobayashi
Damon
2nd April 2010, 12:20
“Looks like gp2 is not the best indicator of drivers’ real skills.”
– No. It looks like F1 is not a good indicatior of drivers’ real skills.
After all, it is GP2 where everybody race on the same car, right?
Perhaps Chandhok has better engineers/has better communication with his engineers or the car suits his driving style better, whereas they can’t yet adjust the car to suit Senna’s driving style.
trev
2nd April 2010, 12:20
He’s not a patch on is uncle i surpose we got to give him time whether he’s a future 3 time champ remains to been seen
David A
2nd April 2010, 17:19
Hopefully he won’t be a flop like another relative of a Brazilian 3 time champ…
TommyB
2nd April 2010, 10:34
Red Bull’s reliability is very annoying. Looks like it’ll be a long time into this year before Vettel will be able to get the result he deserves.
statix
2nd April 2010, 12:42
why annoying :) this is funny! they put all design power to performance and forgot about reliability.
LOL
F1silverarrows
2nd April 2010, 10:35
better to wait until tommorow to get a better idea of the fastest driver, since Hamilton has had numerous top times in practice but does a sub par job in qualifying.
I can see schumacher getting the boot this year and being replaced by vettel in the 2011 season, since 1 driver is not performing and the other is performing but his car isn’t regardless of contracts being signed since there is always an escape rope to get out of it.
The team don’t really focus 100% on the flaws they always seem to get, because it looks like it’s happening more often now then usual, or are we just getting more picky now keith now that 2009 is repeating?
Herbie
2nd April 2010, 10:40
I dont see why Vettel would have any reason to go to Mercedes, he’s pretty well placed where he is at Red Bull..
Edu
2nd April 2010, 10:58
Schumacher will appear in some moment. Wait and see.
F1silverarrows
2nd April 2010, 11:16
50 points in hand instead he gets 12 points because Red Bull arn’t getting their act together and sorting it.
Even now other problems are coming up, what was the point of keeping the car out of the 1st test run of the season just to do more “aero checks” if the car is falling apart every race so far?. They are looking worse then last year if it wasn’t for the RB6 pace for the first 2 races.
You look at the other teams on the grid and barely anything happens to their cars, even HRT and Virgin have had less problems then Red Bull(maybe because they can’t go fast enough to cause a problem?),and that is a reason for thought if anything for vettel but that’s just me I’m not vettel, so maybe I should do the same and just see what happens in the next 17 races…..
But if it isn’t Red Bulls’ fault it’s Renaults fault, If it’s not Renaults fault it’s Red Bull’s fault. How can vettel go to each grand prix with 100% confidence knowing his car just won’t blow up within the first few laps.
I think Vettel would become well placed in Mercedes when the time comes because he is that kind of guy that gets along with anybody who works just as hard as he does.
statix
2nd April 2010, 12:45
And did you think that if its not RB neither Renault fault it may be vettels fault? :)
Its sure thing that theres something wrong. I bet it is very poor reliability or just car hates vettel :) I dont believe that this is only vettels bad luck
Patrickl
2nd April 2010, 19:22
Rosberg has only 20 points and that’s really the absolute maximum he could achieve with that car.
Rosberg realisticly doesn’t stand a chance to win the WDC this year while Vettel is driving the fastest car (especially in the almost all important Q3 session)
Only if Mercedes pull a new car out of the hat that is suddenly faster than the Red Bull would they be able to challenge. How likely is that though?
Besides, people rate a driver who wins a race once in a while but never finishes otherwise a lot higher than one who always finishes but never on top.
Webber scored more points than Vettel during 2009 for the first 12 or 13 races. Yet vettel was constantly heralded the big next champ. Webber lost out that year mostly because in the end he had 3 extra non-scoring finishes which weren’t really his fault.
dsob
3rd April 2010, 9:28
How can Webber NOT break all the time, yet Vettel does? Same story last season. I think the problem is not RBR or Renault, and I think perhaps young Vettel needs a mirror to suss out his breakage problems. It’s all well and good to go fast, but if your foot is so full of lead that it breaks the engine and brakes, then what good comes?
I seem to recall Vettel breaking motors left and right in 2009. Now Vettel is breaking other parts of the car. Renault has obviously built a better engine this year. [evil grin]
sato113
2nd April 2010, 11:15
How BORING is the guy who narrates the BBC practice highlights???
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8600399.stm
bob
2nd April 2010, 11:20
i have to say just one word: LOL :D
Franton
2nd April 2010, 11:42
I thought he was drunk or something?
bernification
2nd April 2010, 16:44
He sounds deranged!
dj
2nd April 2010, 21:11
I need a VPN to see this…could someone recon.,a free Brit. one? A USA one doesn’t work
Franton
2nd April 2010, 21:45
You’re not missing much, seriously. At first it sounded like the guy was reading from a script. It’s the fact he’s pretty much reading in a monotone, starting fast and getting slower with his delivery until the end that made me think he was drafted in at the last minute and was half cut from the night before!
S Hughes
3rd April 2010, 2:28
I can’t believe he has been given the job of commentating. Doesn’t anyone at the BBC actually listen to this before posting it on the internet? Do they not have the same hearing as the general public? I am so disappointed with the BBC in general – Legard is useless, the anti-Lewis, pro-Button bias at the last GP was atrocious (and has sparked many complaints and comments on F1 forums) – I really pine for the ITV days.
Zahir
2nd April 2010, 11:49
I think tyre wear will be a big issue this weekend. We heard on the BBC that teams were having problems with it up and down the pitlane. We saw shots of JB’s left rear heavily degregated, even with his smooth driving style.
I think this will be a problem in the wet as well because apparently the inters go off very quickly so it will be interesting to see who copes best.
steph90
2nd April 2010, 17:07
When it rains it pours there so maybe full wets will be used more.
Another problem with inters too is that once it rains again after it dries a bit they’re meant to be a pain then too
SeattleChris
2nd April 2010, 18:56
No every other team is doing fine for tires. Mclaren have a new Z-Duct system under the car which forces air through the car like the magic bullet that killed Kennedy… this is having an adverse effect on tire wear for Mclaren which when reached for comment said they “have a new J-Duct system that should solve the left rear tire wear for the next race.”
As we all know, the J-Duct works in conjunction with the flow of air specifically over the left side of the car.
Derek
2nd April 2010, 13:29
What’s this about 18inch wheels comming to F1. Sounds good more rubber so better wair, better mechanical grip. But missed by the comentators was there is more room for bigger brakes inside those wheels.
SeattleChris
2nd April 2010, 18:48
I like the comparison in times between the lower 3 teams and the lowest legitimate team! Ha ha ha. I’m sure that the Lotus was on fumes when they set their best time, while I feel it highly likely Williams were not focusing on quali runs.
Some of you mentioned but I thought I’d clarify… Several teams have some for of duct/stall system now, Renault, Sauber and now Mercedes has some small gap just behind their front suspension that may be a duct as well. Ferrari probably has one as well but its invisible!
Palle
2nd April 2010, 20:48
Ferrari also had quality problems before and around the time, when Michael came to the team. Then they really concentrated on quality in all aspects. After a few years the number of DNF’s dropped accordingly. I think Red Bull needs to go through this process – I would have expected them to have started this work already, but apparently not. They really need to concentrate on quality in production, mounting, check etc. etc. Webbers car lasted the whole race in AUS. Vettels car suffered a lost torsion rod in the front suspension, without any kind of contact with other cars – could be caused by poor quality of the mountings or poor quality in workmanship of the mechanics and lack of control of this quality.
Difficult for a young driver to turn a culture of “good enough” with Redbulls mechanics and/or responsible for choice of materials, bolts, nuts, mounting and locking devices etc. – If this is the problem?
And of course Mercedes will keep Michael for all 3 years, his skills in feedback and ideas to further develop a car will still be there, even if he don’t succeed in becomming the fastest driver in the team.
F1 Breaking News
2nd April 2010, 22:25
Follow Me
http://twitter.com/F1BreakingNews
bob
3rd April 2010, 14:37
So I can say the same. Some interesting facts http://www.twitter.com/f1latvija